Above the Grass, In Circles

[michaelboy]

There are so many scary things in life. Recently, I thought about when I was younger and how afraid I was to lose my parents. They were older than most "moms-n-dads" and I was convinced I wouldn't be able to handle them being gone. Well, I survived that and losing others: my grandparents, my wife, friends and I've even had the occasion to share this experience with some of my patients and their families. It's never easy, but it is part of the necessary beauty in the cycle of life. When I hear birds in the morning, I imagine them to be the same birds that I knew and fed when I was young -- the ones at my dad's homemade feeder. I feel safe in this and while in a technical sense they aren't exactly the same creatures, they are the same in another and very important sense. Folks assume that I'm a happy person, and I am. But it doesn't mean that I don't carry sadness with me. It is a vital and healthy human expression and the truth is, there is no escaping it and we all have the opportunity to share it.

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They are alive and well somewhere; The smallest sprouts show there is really no death, And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it, And ceased the moment life appeared. All goes onward and outward. . . .and nothing collapses, And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier. ~ From: A Child said, What is the Grass?

Walt Whitman

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"And they could float above the grass in circles if they tried A latent power I know they hide" - The Shins

Comments

[howsmyenglish]

Mere moments before I read your entry I thought about my mother's death and how I've changed since.
Thanks for the poem.

[michaelboy]

Hopefully you have changed in wonderful ways that would make her proud :)

[howsmyenglish]

:)